


Heartstrings

by snowball_fandoms



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Character Study, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowball_fandoms/pseuds/snowball_fandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek doesn't get Stiles...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartstrings

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot character study of Derek Hale. Not my characters. Vague references to death, gratuitous screwing with canon relationships. Stiles is a girl, Scott is Stiles' brother in my imagination, and Melissa is the best friend because who doesn't love more Melissa McCall!

Derek doesn't get Stiles.

He may understand parts of her. He gets the protective instinct she has for her brother, the way she’ll sacrifice life and limb if it means keeping Scott safe. He gets her desire to go above and beyond for her best friend, Melissa, even though Melissa doesn't exactly support her choices to run with werewolves at the moment. It makes him think of Laura, of her attempts to protect him even as he wrestled with the fact that he didn't deserve it, any of it, any of his sister’s love. He gets the ache of sorrow, the faint change in her scent when she’s dwelling on the loss of her mother or even the gradual, but no less painful, loss of trust that is occurring between her and her father. It may never compare to his, but he feels the companionship of having loved and lost together. He even understands her sarcastic sense of humor. There is only so much stress that can be taken without cracking, and humor is Stiles’ way of relieving the tension. It helps her just as much as it does the others.

But he doesn't understand why she stays.

Why does she stay when clearly her brother is the main priority? Why does she continue to work towards keeping this disjointed pack together? Why is it that despite the fear that rolls off of her in waves, Stiles can still stand up tall and face any challenge, any threat they've seen together? He doesn't understand her loyalty and he certainly doesn't understand her courage.

But it is her courage and loyalty that he loves best.

The same things Derek cannot begin to grasp about Stiles are the reasons why he tracks her heartbeat. They're the same reasons he can pick her laugh, the timber of her voice, out of the crowd at lunchtime when he lives up to his status as creeper wolf and stands on the outskirts of the lacrosse field. They’re the same reasons he thinks her scent is as distinctive as it is, the smell of cinnamon and always the underlying taste of apples. Her scent makes him think of home, of the things he lost and the things he is so desperate to keep safe now.

Stiles makes him desperate.

He doesn't understand why Stiles’ affects him. He gets the physical part, the desire he feels when she drapes herself across the crappy sofa he made himself buy for the house at one of those ridiculous garage sales. It almost smells like pack now, like home. He curbs his instinct to run his fingers through her short curls and his insane desire to tell her to grow it out a bit longer. He tortures himself with half remembered images of Stiles in tank-tops and shorts, lounging on the porch with Lydia and calling out encouragement to Isaac and Scott as they shift back and forth in an attempt to train while Jackson and the rest watch close by. No, desire Derek gets, even embraces. But it’s the rest that he can’t quite wrap his mind around.


End file.
